


Chrysalides

by khazadspoon



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander - All Media Types
Genre: Declarations Of Love, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, M/M, Realisations of love, hurt comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 10:46:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17262842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khazadspoon/pseuds/khazadspoon
Summary: It began softly, slowly, gently, like a moth emerging from a cocoon. The friendship that had come to define Jack’s career, his life, became what sustained it. The presence of Stephen in his cabin at dusk until he was near sleep was something he had come to treasure in a part of his heart he thought too shallow to accept such devotion. He found himself depending on the physician for advice, comfort, for companionship on their long voyages. The steady contact they shared became a necessity, and he loved it more than he had with any other living creature.---After Stephen's treatment at the hands of French intelligence, Jack comes to the realisation of just how much he needs and loves his friend.





	Chrysalides

**Author's Note:**

> Set after 'HMS Surprise' but not really following any major continuity because I've not read all the books (lol 1 book) this deals with Jack's feelings being brought to the fore after Stephen recovers. It's written for a great friend who got me into this fandom and now I've got another maritime obsession to add to the pile.

It began softly, slowly, gently, like a moth emerging from a cocoon. The friendship that had come to define Jack’s career, his  _ life _ , became what sustained it. The presence of Stephen in his cabin at dusk until he was near sleep was something he had come to treasure in a part of his heart he thought too shallow to accept such devotion. He found himself depending on the physician for advice, comfort, for companionship on their long voyages. The steady contact they shared became a necessity, and he loved it more than he had with any other living creature. 

Jack often found himself smiling almost absent-minded at his friend’s actions, from his enthusiastic descriptions of wildlife to his angry mutterings in Gaelic, the latter of which often followed some remark or action of his own. And, even if Stephen had never truly acquired his “sea legs”, he was still seen by all of Jack’s crews as a valued and necessary addition. If he were forced to do so, Jack would admit that being able to rescue his dearest friend from falls down ladders or (on many occasions) overboard were some of the most satisfying of his career. 

The first true notion of how deeply his affections ran occurred to him one evening in the great cabin. Stephen had joined him after the officers had departed, the two of them slipping into their usual dance of wit and bickering. Jack had, in an attempt to woo his friend into a good humour, picked up his violin and struck a jolly chord. Stephen had rolled his eyes and joined him on the cello. They played together, old tunes melding with new as Stephen warmed to the duet. Jack watched his friend closely, eyes dancing over the steady movements of his fingers. He smiled to himself and felt his heart swell as Stephen looked up at him, his lips forming a mirror of Jack’s own. 

In a rush that caused an ill note to stumble from his bow, Jack was struck with how  _ different  _ they were. Himself, a brash and bright Navy officer, fond of drink and women and the sea. And Stephen, a man of science and thought and so  _ untidy  _ that Jack sometimes wanted to shake him. But, despite their differences, there was something that drew them together time after time to be whole again in one another’s company. Jack felt what love was in that moment. He felt it’s bright sting and cowered from it, grasped it in his heart’s grip and hid it from the world like a jealous lover. 

The word  _ lover  _ hit his mind like a bolt of lightning. He had in his time as an officer been with men, had known their touch both innocently and carnally. Though it had been some years since his last tryst of such a nature. As he lay abed that night, his mind conjured images of Stephen to his mind. He saw Stephen, his eyes bright and his skin so pale in the dark, reclining on a bed of silk. He saw their lips touching, saw Stephen’s hands grasping him, moving and commanding him with an ease that seemed too natural to be real. Jack touched himself and pictured his friend’s face, imagined the gentle praise that would fall from his lips. 

“ _ Yes, Jack,”  _ he would say, “ _ yes, dear-heart, for  _ **_me._ ** ”

Then, Stephen was missing. Captured by the French and subjected to who knew what horrors. Jack was beside himself, inconsolable until Stephen was rescued by his own hand and safe aboard ship. He found it difficult (nearly impossible) to sleep as Stephen lay injured and unconscious. When Stephen woke and began to speak, his heart began to beat again. He put one hand on his friend’s wrist, yearning to take his hand and kiss the broken and maimed knuckled but loathing the idea of causing him pain. 

“I’ll be alright,” Stephen said one night. The laudanum had stemmed the tide of his pain, finally allowing him some relief. “If not for you, I might have-”

Jack swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. “Hush, joy, I’ll not hear you talk of such things. You’re here, you’re safe;  _ that _ is all that matters.” 

Stephen looked up at him through bleary and bloodshot eyes. He licked his chapped lips and lifted one bandaged hand to Jack’s cheek. “If you’ll not hear me speak of it, I’ll not see you shed tears over it.”

The small and delicate flower of affection in Jack’s chest bloomed. A sudden light shone, illuminating the thick and hardy vine of  _ love  _ it grew out of, and Jack’s world shifted. He smiled, an honest smile that brightened his sombre expression, and relaxed. “Alright,” he whispered. “For you.”

The months passed and Stephen healed. His hands, though severely damaged, could still do most of what they had done before his torture. Jack watched the delight on his friend’s face as he picked up a pencil for the first time and wrote his name. He saw the relief that washed over Stephen as he tested out his grip on the cello and plucked a few notes. And  _ oh  _ to hear music again! Jack had refused to play while Stephen was unable, not wanting to flaunt what he could do and Stephen could not. The first duet they played after that time of pain and waiting was a simple jig, and Jack poured every ounce of joy and love he could muster into each jolly note. 

After, with a laugh that settled deep in Jack’s chest, Stephen clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve missed this so terribly, Jack!” He took a long and steadying breath before letting it out in a sigh, his breath tickling the hair at the back of Jack’s head. “Even just a simple tune is- it’s better medicine than any I’ve used before.”

“It does my heart good to hear you say so,” Jack replied. He leaned into the hand on his shoulder, let the satisfied purr of his heartbeat take over in place of reason. The hand slipped over the crest of his shoulder and settled at the top of his back, the weight of it warm and so welcome. Jack’s eyes slipped shut. He was exhausted. 

“Jack?” Stephen asked quietly. 

He huffed a breath through his nose, taking strength from the warmth of his friend beside him as he began to speak. “I… I know we agreed not to bring ourselves down by discussing it, but I must say  _ something  _ at least.”

Stephen’s brows furrowed, his lips twisting in a frown. “Jack, you don’t-”

“No! I must. I was beside myself with you gone. Food lost its taste, the sea lost her colour; everything I am was hellbent on finding you, on seeing you safe with me once more. If something had happened, if you had  _ died _ -!” He paused, swallowing the lump that formed in his throat as the idea swam into his thoughts again. “Stephen, you know me better than any man alive, perhaps even better than I know myself. You are the truest friend I’ve ever known, and I love you with all of my heart. I fear I cannot conceal it a moment longer, not even if King George were to personally tie a noose about my neck.”

The near constant pounding of his heart was as deafening as a full complement of guns in his ears. He didn’t dare look up to see the expression on his friend’s face, the idea of revulsion or disdain or  _ pity  _ almost too much for him to take. So he watched his own hands, saw them as large and borish where they were fastened together at his belly. 

“John Aubrey.” The sound of his true name, not the one used by friends or family, struck him like an iron. He looked up and caught the softness on Stephen’s face, felt it rush through him and warm the numbness of his thoughts. Stephen sighed heavily, his brows drew in as he frowned. “You have kept this to yourself, with no relief?”

Jack nodded once, curtly. His broad shoulders felt as though they were about to quake as Stephen stood straighter and put one gentle hand on his arm. 

“My dear,  _ dear  _ Jack… Had you shared this sooner, neither of us would have suffered in silence for so long.”

He opened his mouth to ask “what?”, but was met with lips pressed ever so softly against his own. Stephen’s mouth, usually so stern when he was not talking, was warm and damp. It pressed to Jack’s with infinite patience, a puff of air passing over Jack’s cheek as Stephen sighed against him. The hand on his arm drifted up, cupped his cheek and he folded into his friend’s embrace. 

They kissed slowly, Jack’s previous experience and bravado lost to the singularly new sensation of a man’s lips against his own. He felt sighs and gasps build in his chest, each sound bubbling up his throat and spurring his shorter companion on. Stephen’s mouth moved against his own slowly, gently, leading him into deeper waters as their lips parted and Stephen’s tongue met his own. He wrapped his arms about Stephen’s waist and drew them closer. As their chests met, Stephen broke the kiss and tilted his chin, nipping lightly at Jack’s jawline. 

A familiar and desperate heat began to bloom in his belly at the nip. He barely repressed the groan that threatened to spill from his lips, a shake starting in his hands and travelled up his arms. He felt like a babe, naked despite his uniform and vulnerable despite his strength. Stephen hushed him and took his hands. He led Jack to a chair and sat him down, perching on his knee to hold him close and stroke his long golden hair. 

“I’m here,” Stephen said softly. For a moment he seemed unlike himself; far too tender, too gentle. But, as Jack felt his heart calm and his mind clear, he thought that this was always Stephen’s demeanor towards him. “Hush, joy, I’m here.”

And he  _ was _ . 

Jack looked up and, with far more daring than he thought was left in him, brought Stephen down into another kiss. He felt Stephen shudder against him as their lips met again, as he took control of the kiss and remembered his own skill at the task. Stephen’s short hair was sea-salt coarse under his fingers, the entirety of his being warm as Jack brought him to straddle his lap. He felt the weight of Stephen and groaned, finally releasing the sounds that refused to be contained any longer. He held onto Stephen’s hip with one large hand, felt Stephen’s shudder again and pressed their foreheads together. 

“Stephen, I- I’m lost,” he whispered into the hot air between them. “I’ve never been…  _ intimate _ with a man. I fear I will be of little use to you.” 

“Don’t think of such things now,” said Stephen lowly, “we are both tired. Let us sleep and re examine ourselves in the morning.”

Jack nodded but didn’t loosen his grip. Stephen didn’t get up. They sat entwined, sharing breath and warmth, for another dozen minutes until the bells were struck for ten of the clock. Then, slowly and with no shortage of stiffness, Stephen rose. He kissed Jack on the cheek and bid him goodnight. 

In the morning they took breakfast together, and Jack could scarcely keep the boyish grin from his face as Stephen’s foot rested against his own. They talked warmly, any awkwardness Jack might have fears far from the great cabin even as he took Stephen’s hand and kissed the knuckles. 

The next few days continued as they would have regardless. Jack saw to the running of his ship, kept his crew happy and did his duty to King and Country while Stephen saw to minor ailments and took note of the seabirds that flew overhead as they neared land. They shared more kisses, some chaste and sweet, others hurried and passionate and fueled by the fire stoked within their bellies. Jack’s earlier hesitation as he considered being  _ with  _ Stephen began to wane. He considered, for the first time since meeting the man, how Master William Marshall must have conducted himself if he engaged in affairs. Did he feel the same trepidation, the same anxious and nervous excitement? 

His time was taken from him as they came to port in Lisbon and he oversaw the tedious tasks of seeing his men safely ashore. He engaged the purser and quartermaster in conversation regarding the stores still left in the hold and what would be needed in order to set off once again in a few days time. With such  _ enticing  _ pursuits he had very little time to think on his own situation. But as he put his head down onto the pillow of the bed he was to stay in for the duration of their stay in Lisbon, the thoughts came rushing back. 

Jack knew in part what it was sodomites did with one another. He knew some of the practicalities, some of the actions even if not the details. There were few men in the service who did  _ not  _ know these things, what with rumour and gossip being rife amongst men cramped together for long stretches of time. 

The sudden and intense knowledge that, just down the hall, Stephen was alone in a state possibly like he found himself. He ran fingers through his long, bright hair and curled the ends round his fingertips. Flutterings, not unlike the delicate notes of some nocturne, made their way from his heart to his stomach. He sighed heavily before sitting up again and reaching for the ribbon to tie his hair back. Courage somehow made its home in his belly and Jack stood on steady legs. He carefully shut the door behind himself and made his way to the room he knew Stephen to be staying in. 

The low murmur of “enter” met him as he rapped on the door. Inside, Stephen was sat at the table, his feet propped carelessly on the bed and his things scattered in such familiar disarray that Jack couldn’t keep the smile from his face if he had tried. 

“Jack!” Gasped Stephen, his bright eyes widening as Jack stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind him, the latch falling into place with a resounding ‘click’. “I thought for sure you would be busy most of the evening. Are you well?”

He lifted a hand, urging Stephen to stay seated as he made his way across the room. “I’m quite well, I assure you. Though I can’t sleep, if I’m honest. I am… preoccupied with thoughts.”

Stephen swung his legs from the bed and turned to face Jack fully. “What is it?”

Jack swallowed the lump in his throat and reached out, taking one of Stephen’s hands in his own. “I have been thinking on the changed nature of our relationship,” he said at length. “Your closeness is- what I mean to say is- Damn it all; I  _ desire  _ you, Stephen.”

They looked at one another for long moments, a depth of heat low in Jack’s stomach forming as Stephen began to smile at him with an almost mischievous look in his eyes. 

“I desire you, too, Jack.”

Stephen leaned forward and kissed him. It was slow and deep, not unlike the kisses they had shared in the great cabin, but there was a simmering lust beneath it that shocked Jack to his core. He felt his breeches tighten as one of Stephen’s hands lay on his thigh, a rush of breath from his nose as the hand tightened. The muscles in his thigh jumped, the space between his legs heating and hardening as the kiss grew hotter. Jack groaned, the sound echoed in Stephen’s throat, and spread his knees apart. The hand on his thigh moved upward inch by inch, his own moving to hold onto Stephen’s shoulders as they kissed. 

“Lay on the bed with me,” Stephen uttered into the warm space between their mouths. Jack nodded, their noses bumping and quiet laughter flitting from their lips. The two men stood, albeit shakily, and lay side by side on the bed. They faced one another and Jack watched the fascinated expression on Stephen’s face as it was illuminated by lamplight. 

Stephen’s hand came up to untie Jack’s hair, his fingers carded through the long locks and draped them over his shoulder. 

“Alchemy is no true science,” the doctor said quietly, voice lilting as his accent grew broader. “But if I were to take a strand of your hair and examine it closer, I think I should find it to be made of pure gold.”

Jack felt a blush rise on his cheeks and his eyes darted away. To have affection from women, to make love with them in all manner of places, was second nature to Jack. But  _ this-  _ the deep affection that bordered on insanity, the slow dance of kisses and words and to be  _ chased  _ instead to to be chasing, was entirely unknown. He leaned into a kiss and felt Stephen’s hand  rest on his hip and push against the placard of his breeches. 

Desire, as clear as it had ever been, made its home in Jack’s veins, and he felt the hardness between his thighs become almost painful as Stephen began to tease him. A finger, just barely touching skin, shocked Jack into making a sound more wanton that he had ever made with any woman. 

Stephen’s hands were by no means as calloused as Jack’s, but they were so unknown to Jack’s skin that he felt shivers and jolts flow through him as Stephen took him in hand. His prick throbbed as Stephen stroked. Had he done this before? Jack felt his own inexperience and found himself projecting it onto Stephen without knowing the entirety of the doctor’s past. 

In a rush of sudden movement, Stephen dragged Jack upon him, their hips meeting in a press of lustful pleasure that felt like a musket ball to Jack’s stomach. He groaned,  _ moaned _ , into Stephen’s mouth as they met in a kiss. A breathless sound fell from Stephen’s lips and Jack drank it, swallowed it, with a shudder. Their hips settled together and pressed. Jack felt the shaking breath against his cheek and shucked off the suddenly oppressive material of his shirt. He grabbed at Stephen’s shirt, a dull and well worn grey, lifted it over the man’s head and felt the touch of skin on skin. 

A sound far more pleasing than any song that had come from Stephen’s lips was uttered then, and Jack could scarcely contain his grin at the sound. Stephen bucked his hips and let Jack settle upon him, the bulk and weight of him not seeming to be a problem. Stephen looked up at him, the fervency of the moment dwindling as they gazed at one another. 

“Comfortable up there?” Asked Stephen, eyes dancing with mirth. 

Jack nodded and ran his hands down the length of Stephen’s chest. His hands seemed impossibly large, dwarfing his friend’s chest almost ridiculously. He felt Stephen’s hands on his hips and swallowed a whine - to be touched so, to be held and cradled by a  _ man  _ was something he had never expected to happen, nevertheless expected to  _ enjoy _ . 

“Here,” Stephen said after a moment, his hands ever so gently tugging at Jack’s hips. “Like this.”

He began to set a rhythm, slow and somehow deep. It tugged at the heat in Jack’s belly. He felt the same whine from moments ago crawl back up his throat and spill forth like whine. Stephen’s face flushed pink and bloomed with affection at the sound, his hands pushing the rhythm just a little faster as the warmth between them grew again. 

“Stephen,  _ Stephen  _ I-  _ oh-”  _ He groaned through gritted teeth. As Stephen controlled their pace, easing it back from the edge of frantic time and time again, Jack fought to control the swell of pure emotion rising in his breast. Tears stung at the corners of his eyes and hitched sobs rattled within him. 

With each grind of their hips the end of their pleasure grew nearer; Jack wasn’t ready. He didn’t want it to end like this, spilling in his breeches like a boy, so impersonal and distant despite the heat on their skin. 

Hurriedly, thoughts flying this way and that, Jack divested the two of them of their remaining clothes. Stephen lay there before him naked, his pale skin now marred by a few scars was no less beautiful to Jack’s eyes. His cock, small and thick, lay against his thigh and Jack reached for it with tentative hands. 

The first touch was like a brand. He felt Stephen’s body quake and rise towards him, the doctor’s back bowed off the bed in the most graceful movement his body had ever made. In a rush, Stephen shuffled back to sit at the headboard, his legs parted. 

“Come,” he said softly and beckoned for Jack to sit between his thighs. Then, with far more surety than Jack had, he gripped Jack’s cock in one hand and began to stroke. It made Jack’s toes curl and a low rumble reverberated in his chest as Stephen looked up at him with eyes full of praise and joy. 

He reached out and returned the gesture, stroking Stephen’s prick with short and steady pumps. They set a new rhythm together and were soon gasping. Jack’s broad shoulders tensed, the muscles in his arm and chest stood out as a sheen of sweat formed on his skin. He gazed transfixed at Stephen who had blushed a pretty pink, his slighter form trembling with the anticipation of orgasm that was building in his gut. 

“Oh Jack,  _ Captain _ you tease me so-” Stephen uttered, hips hips canting up into Jack’s grip. The use of his title made a new thrill jump through him, thoughts of games and chases and  _ prizes  _ yet to be won flitting through his mind in a rush of lust and giddy excitement. 

Stephen’s free hand gripped his backside and tugged, brought him closer, a finger slipping between his cheeks. 

_ “Oh!”  _ He let out a shuddering breath, his cock jerking in Stephen’s grip at the mere thought that Stephen might want to  _ fuck  _ him, to be  _ inside  _ him. 

The finger pressed, the lack of lubrication hindering any further action, but the pressure and the insinuation made Jack keen. His hips rocked between the grip on his cock and the finger at his arse, and Jack kept his eyes fixed firmly on the gentle calm of Stephen’s face. 

“That’s it,” Stephen said in a voice like silk, so different to his usual timbre that it made Jack shiver, “let it happen. Finish for me, my love.”

Jack did. He came in a rush, the sensation forming deep in his belly and seeming to tug pleasure from the tips of his ears to the base of his spine. He moaned and gasped as Stephen stroked his cock through every second of his orgasm, that finger at his arse pressing just a little harder and rubbing until Jack nearly begged for more. 

Then, his limbs suddenly lax and boneless, he fell onto the bed at Stephen’s side. He nuzzled at his friend’s chest, kissing and nipping at the skin as he groped with one hand to find his cock once more. With a little more daring, he felt a little lower and cradled the man’s balls, tugged gently and squeezed the way he knew  _ he  _ liked it. At Stephen’s happy moan he knew the good doctor liked the same. 

“I should like it very much if you kissed me,” Jack mumbled into the hollow of Stephen’s throat, up on one elbow as he tightened his grip on the man’s cock. 

Stephen kissed him hard and moaned, long and reedy, into Jack’s mouth. The steady rhythm of his breath got faster with each passing moment, the notes of his voice rising toward a crescendo Jack was eager to reach. 

He nipped at Stephen’s lip, suckled on it lightly to hear the fluttering moan that came from Stephen’s chest, and pressed their foreheads together. 

“Your turn now, joy. Spill for me, let me see you. 

Stephen’s orgasm came quickly, his eyes squeezed shut as he curved into Jack’s body, hips pushing up into his grip as it overwhelmed him. Jack kissed him again and expected he would always be greedy for this. 

As they entered the  _ diminuendo  _ of their union, their breathing becoming more even and their heartbeats starting to slow, the two of them slipped between the sheets. Stephen took a scrap of fabric, possibly a neck cloth, and wiped the evidence of their coupling away. Jack gathered the man into his arms and kissed the wiry hair on his head. 

He found himself at a loss for words. Stephen, it seemed, felt the same. They lay in silence for a while and listened to the coming and going of carriages outside. Jack stroked his hand up and down Stephen’s flank with a distracted motion, his mind carried away by the thought of  _ what next _ . 

At some point he must have fallen asleep. A soft brush of fingers across his forehead, hair brushed from his face, woke him. 

“What time is it?” He asked quietly, sotto-voice. 

Stephen tugged his left shoe on and dipped down to kiss Jack’s brow. “Time the two of us showed our faces for dinner.”

Jack groaned and turned away. “I hate dinner…”

“You hate  _ society _ , you don’t hate dinner.”

“...I suppose. Can’t we stay here? I’ll call for something to eat in my room, you can join me and neither of us need endure the devils out there!” He sat up and reached for Stephen’s hand, gently stroking the back of his wrist. 

Stephen laughed quietly. “As wonderful as that sounds, my dear, I think your adoring public would miss you should you  _ not  _ go out. There will be time for private entertainment later.”

_ Private entertainment.  _ The notion was altogether too inviting. He groaned and lifted himself from the bed. “Alright, I suppose so. But permit me one last kiss.”

They kissed, a slow and gentle thing that barely tiptoed into the realms beyond chaste. 

Later, with Stephen engaged in a quiet but enthusiastic conversation about some new species with a fellow scientist, Jack found himself waiting with impatience for the night to end. Dinner and talk and  _ society  _ were the ten years of trials keeping him from Ithaca, it seemed. 

But, as he glanced over to see Stephen gazing back at him, he felt the strength to endure a little longer. 


End file.
